Letters of Pliny

42 (return)

[ A feast held in honour of the god Saturn, which began on the 19th of December, and continued as some say, for seven days. It was a time of general rejoicing, particularly among the slaves, who had at this season the privilege of taking great liberties with their masters. M.]

43 (return)

[ Cicero and Quintilian have laid down rules how far, and in what instances, this liberty was allowable, and both agree it ought to be used with great sagacity and judgment. The latter of these excellent critics mentions a witticism of Flavius Virginius, who asked one of these orators, "Quot nillia assuum deciamassett." How many miles he had declaimed. M.]

44 (return)

[ This was an act of great ceremony; and if Aurelia's dress was of the kind which some of the Roman ladies used, the legacy must have been considerable which Regulus had the impudence to ask. M.]

45 (return)

[ $3,350,000.]

46 (return)

[ A poet to whom Quintilian assigns the highest rank, as a Writer of tragedies, among his contemporaries (book X. C. I. 98). Tacitus also speaks of him in terms of high appreciation (Annals, v. 8).]

47 (return)

[ Stepson of Augustus and brother to Tiberius. An amiable and popular prince. He died at the close of his third campaign, from a fracture received by falling from his horse.]

48 (return)

[ A historian under Augustus and Tiberius. He wrote part of a history of Rome, which was continued by the elder Pliny; also an account of the German war, to which Quintilian makes allusion (Inst. X. 103), pronouncing him, as a historian, "estimable in all respects, yet in some things failing to do himself justice."]

49 (return)

[ The distribution of time among the Romans was very different from ours. They divided the night into four equal parts, which they called watches, each three hours in length; and part of these they devoted either to the pleasures of the table or to study. The natural day they divided into twelve hours, the first beginning with sunrise, and the last ending with sunset; by which means their hours were of unequal length, varying according to the different seasons of the year. The time for business began with sunrise, and continued to the fifth hour, being that of dinner, which with them was only a slight repast. From thence to the seventh hour was a time of repose; a custom which still prevails in Italy. The eighth hour was employed in bodily exercises; after which they constantly bathed, and from thence went to supper. M.]

50 (return)

[ $16,000.]

51 (return)

[ Born about A. D. 25. He acquired some distinction as an advocate. The only poem of his which has come down to us is a heavy prosaic performance in seventeen books, entitled "Tunica," and containing an account of the events of the Second Punic War, from the capture of Saguntum to the triumph of Scipio Africanus. See Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Roin. Biog.]

52 (return)

[ Trajan.]

53 (return)

[ Spurinna's wife.]

54 (return)

[ Domitian banished the philosophers not only from Rome, but Italy, as Suetonius (Dom. C. X.) and Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. b. XV. CXI. 3, 4, 5) Inform us among these was the celebrated Epictetus. M.]

55 (return)

[ The following is the story, as related by several of the ancient historians. Paetus, having joined Scribonianus, who was in arms, in Illyria, against Claudius, was taken after the death of Scribonianus, and condemned to death. Arria having, in vain, solicited his life, persuaded him to destroy himself, rather than suffer the ignominy of falling by the executioner's hands; and, in order to encourage him to an act, to which, it seems, he was not particularly inclined, she set him the example in the manner Pliny relates. M.]

56 (return)

[ Trajan.]

57 (return)

[ The Roman, used to employ their criminals in the lower ones of husbandry, such as ploughing, &c. Pun. H. N. 1. 18, 3. M.]

58 (return)

[ About $500,000.]

59 (return)

[ About $800,000.]

60 (return)

[ One of the famous seven hills upon which Rome was situated.]

61 (return)

[ Mart. LX. 19.]

62 (return)

[ Calpurnia, Pliny's wife.]

63 (return)

[ Now Citta di Castello.]

64 (return)

[ The Romans had an absolute power over their children, of which no age or station of the latter deprived them.]

65 (return)

[ Their business was to interpret dreams, oracles, prodigies, &c., and to foretell whether any action should be fortunate or prejudicial, to particular persons, or to the whole commonwealth. Upon this account, they very often occasioned the displacing of magistrates, the deferring of public assemblies, &c. Kennet's Ron,. Antig. M.]

66 (return)

[ Trajan.]

67 (return)

[ A slave was incapable of property; and, therefore, whatever he acquired became the right of his master. M.]

68 (return)

[ "Their office was to attend upon the rites of Vests, the chief part of which was the preservation of the holy fire. If this fire happened to go out, it was considered impiety to light it at any common flame, but they made use of the pure and unpolluted rays of the sun for that purpose. There were various other duties besides connected with their office. The chief rules prescribed them were, to vow the strictest chastity, for the space of thirty years. After this term was completed, they had liberty to leave the order. If they broke their vow of virginity, they were buried alive in a place allotted to that peculiar use." Kennet's Antiq. Their reputation for sanctity was so high that Livy mentions the fact of two of those virgins having violated their vows, as a prodigy that, threatened destruction to the Roman state. Lib. XXII. C. 57. And Suetonius inform, us that Augiastus had so high an opinion of this religious order, that he consigned the care of his will to the Vestal Virgins. Suet, in vit. Aug. C. XCI. M.]

69 (return)

[ It was usual with Domitian to triumph, not only without a victory, but even after a defeat, M.]

70 (return)

[ Euripides' Hecuba,]

71 (return)

[ The punishment inflicted upon the violators of Vestal chastity was to be scourged to death. M.]

72 (return)

[ Calpurnia, Pliny's wife.]

73 (return)

[ Gratilla was the wife of Rusticus: Rusticus was put to death by Domitian, and Gratilla banished. It was sufficient crime in the reign of that execrable prince to be even a friend of those who were obnoxious to him. M.]

74 (return)

[ In the original, scrinium, box for holding MSS.]

75 (return)

[ The hippodromus, in its proper signification, was a place, among the Grecians, set apart for horse-racing and other exercises of that kind. But it seems here to be nothing more than a particular walk, to which Pliny perhaps gave that name, from its bearing some resemblance in its form to the public places so called. M.]

76 (return)

[ Now called Frascati, Tivoli, and Palestrina, all of them situated in the Campagna di Roma, and at no great distance from Rome. M.]

77 (return)

[ "This is said in allusion to the idea of Nemesis supposed to threaten excessive prosperity." (Church and Brodribb.)]

78 (return)

[ About $15,000.]

79 (return)

[ About $42,000.]

80 (return)

[ None had the right of using family pictures or statues but those whose ancestors or themselves had borne some of the highest dignities. So that the jus imaginis was much the same thing among the Romans as the right of bearing a coat of arms among us. Ken. Antiq. M.]

81 (return)

[ The Roman physicians used to send their patients in consumptive cases into Egypt, particularly to Alexandria. M.]

82 (return)

[ Frejus, in Provence, the southern part of France. M.]

83 (return)

[ A court of justice erected by Julius Cæsar in the forum, and opposite to the basilica Aemilia.]

84 (return)

[ The deceniviri seem to have been magistrates for the administration of justice, subordinate to the praetors, who (to give the English reader a general notion of their office) may be termed lords chief justices, as the judges here mentioned were something in the nature of our juries. M.]

85 (return)

[ About $400.]

86 (return)

[ This silly piece of superstition seems to have been peculiar to Regulus, and not of any general practice; at least it is a custom of which we find no other mention in antiquity. M.]

87 (return)

[ "We gather from Martial that the wearing of these was not an unusual practice with fops and dandies." See Epig. II. 29, in which he ridicules a certain Rufus, and hints that if you were to "strip off the 'splenia (plasters)' from his face, you would find out that he was a branded runaway slave." (Church and Brodribb.)]

88 (return)

[ His wife.]

89 (return)

[ Hom. II. lib, I. V. 88.]

90 (return)

[ Now Alzia, not far from Corno.]

91 (return)

[ Nevertheless, Javolentis Priscus was one of the most eminent lawyers of his time, and is frequently quoted in the Digesta of Justinian.]

92 (return)

[ In the Bay of Naples.]

93 (return)

[ The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after anointing their bodies with oil, which was esteemed as greatly contributing to health, and therefore daily practised by them. This custom, however, of anointing themselves, is inveighed against by the Satirists as in the number of their luxurious indulgences: but since we find the elder Pliny here, and the amiable Spurinna in a former letter, practising this method, we can not suppose the thing itself was esteemed unmanly, but only when it was attended with some particular circumstances of an over-refined delicacy. M.]

94 (return)

[ Now called Castelamare, in the Bay of Naples. M.]

95 (return)

[ The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers held that the world was to be destroyed by fire, and all things fall again into original chaos; not excepting even the national gods themselves from the destruction of this general conflagration. M.]

96 (return)

[ The lake Larius.]

97 (return)

[ Those families were styled patrician whose ancestors had been members of the senate in the earliest times of the regal or consular government. M.]

98 (return)

[ Trajan]

99 (return)

[ The consuls, though they were chosen in August, did not enter upon their office till the first of January, during which interval they were styled consules designati, consuls elect. It was usual for them upon that occasion to compliment the emperor, by whose appointment, after the dissolution of the republican government, they were chosen. M.]

100 (return)

[ So called, because it formerly belonged to Camillus. M.]

101 (return)

[ Civita Vecchia.]

102 (return)

[ Trajan.]

103 (return)

[ An officer in the Roman legions, answering in some sort to a captain In our companies. M.]

104 (return)

[ This law was made by Augustus Cæsar; but it nowhere clearly appears what was the peculiar punishment it inflicted. M.]

105 (return)

[ An officer employed by the emperor to receive and regulate the public revenue in the provinces. M.]

106 (return)

[ Comprehending Transylvania, Moldavia, and Walaehia. M.]

107 (return)

[ Polycletus was a freedman, and great favourite of Nero. M.]

108 (return)

[ Memmius, or Rhemmius (the critics are not agreed which), was author of a law by which it was enacted that whosoever was convicted of calumny and false accusation should be stigmatised with a mark in his forehead; and by the law of the twelve tables, false accusers were to suffer the same punishment as would have been inflicted upon the person unjustly accused if the crime had been proved. M.]

109 (return)

[ Trajan.]

110 (return)

[ Unction was much esteemed and prescribed by the ancients. Celsus expressly recommends it in the remission of acute distempers: "ungi leniterque pertractari corpus, etiam in acutic et recentibus niorbis opartet; us rernissione fumen," &c. Celsi Med. ed. Aliucloveen, p. 88. M.]

111 (return)

[ His wife.]

112 (return)

[ See book V. letter XX.]

113 (return)

[ Trajan.]

114 (return)

[ One of the Bithynians employed to manage the trial. M.]

115 (return)

[ About $28,000.]

116 (return)

[ About $26,000.]

117 (return)

[ There is a kind of witticism in this expression, which will be lost to the mere English reader unless he be informed that the Romans had a privilege, confirmed to them by several laws which passed in the earlier ages of the republic, of appealing from the decisions of the magistrates to the general assembly of the people: and they did so in the form of words which Pomponius here applies to a different purpose. M.]

118 (return)

[ The priests, as well as other magistrates, exhibited public games to the people when they entered upon their office. M.]

119 (return)

[ A famous lawyer who flourished in the reign of the emperor Claudius: those who followed his opinions were said to be Cassians, or of the school of Cassius. M.]

120 (return)

[ A Stoic philosopher and native of Tarsus. He was tutor for some time to Octavius, afterwards Augustus, Cæsar.]

121 (return)

[ Balzac very prettily observes: "Il y a des riviere: qui ne font jamais tact de bien que quand elles se dibordent; de eneme, l'amitie n'a mealleur quo l'exces." M.]

122 (return)

[ Persons of rank and literature among the Romans retained in their families a domestic whose sole business was to read to them. M.]

123 (return)

[ It was a doctrine maintained by the Stoics that all crimes are equal M.]

124 (return)

[ About $400.]

125 (return)

[ About $600.]

126 (return)

[ About $93.]

127 (return)

[ Hom. II. lib. IX. V. 319.]

128 (return)

[ Those of Nero and Domitian. M.]

129 (return)

[ When Nerva and Trajan received the empire. M.]

130 (return)

[ A slave could acquire no property, and consequently was incapable bylaw of making a will. M.]

131 (return)

[ Now called Amelia, a town in Ombria. M.]

132 (return)

[ Now Laghetto di Bassano. M.]

133 (return)

[ A province in Anatolia, or Asia Minor. M.]

134 (return)

[ The performers at these gaines were divided into companies, distinguished by the particular colour of their habits; the principal of which were the white, the red, the blue, and the green. Accordingly the spectators favoured one or the other colour, as humour and caprice inclined them. In the reign of Justinian a tumult arose in Constantinople, occasioned merely by a contention among the partisans of these several colours, wherein no less than 30,000 men lost their lives. M.]

135 (return)

[ Now called Castello di Baia, in Terra di Lavoro. It was the place the Romans chose for their winter retreat; and which they frequented upon account of its warm baths. Some few ruins of the beautiful villas that once covered this delightful coast still remain; and nothing can give one a higher idea of the prodigious expense and magnificence of the Romans in their private buildings than the manner in which some of these were situated. It appears from this letter, as well as from several other passages in the classic writers, that they actually projected into the sea, being erected upon vast piles, sunk for that purpose.]

136 (return)

[ The buskin was a kind of high shoe worn upon the stage by the actors of tragedy, in order to give them a more heroical elevation of stature; as the sock was something between a shoe and stocking, it was appropriated to the comic players. M.]

137 (return)

[ Lyons.]

138 (return)

[ He was accused of treason, under pretence that in a dramatic piece which he composed he had, in the characters of Paris and Oenone, reflected upon Domitian for divorcing his wife Domitia. Suet, in Vit. Domit. C. 10. M.]

139 (return)

[ Helvidius.]

140 (return)

[ Upon the accession of Nerva to the empire, after the death of Domitian. M.]

142 (return)

[ Our authors first wife; of whom we have no particular account. After her death, he married his favourite Calpurnia. M.]

143 (return)

[ It is very remarkable that, when any senator was asked his opinion in the house, he had the privilege of speaking as long as he pleased upon any other affair before he came to the point in question. Aul. Gell. IV. C. 10. M.]

144 (return)

[ Aeneid, LIB. VI. V. 105.]

145 (return)

[ Arria and Fannia.]

146 (return)

[ The appellation by which the senate was addressed. M.]

147 (return)

[ The tribunes were magistrates chosen at first out of the body of the commons, for the defence of their liberties, and to interpose in all grievances offered by their superiors. Their authority extended even to the deliberations of the senate. M.]

148 (return)

[ Diomed's speech to Nestor, advising him to retire from the field of battle. Iliad, VIII. 302. Pope. M.]

149 (return)

[ Nerva.]

150 (return)

[ Domitian; by whom he had been appointed consul elect, though he had not yet entered upon that office. M.]

151 (return)

[ These persons were introduced at most of the tables of the great, for the purposes of mirth and gaiety, and constituted an essential part in all polite entertainments among the Romans. It is surprising how soon this great people fell off from their original severity of manners, and were tainted with the stale refinements of foreign luxury. Livy dates the rise of this and other unmanly delicacies from the conquest of Scipio Asiaticus over Antiochus; that is when the Roman name had scarce subsisted above a hundred and threescore years. "Luxuriae peregrinae origio," says he, "exercitu Asiatico in urbem invecta est." This triumphant army caught, it seems, the contagious softness of the people it subdued; and, on its return to Rome, spread an infection among their countrymen, which worked by slow degrees, till it effected their total destruction. Thus did Eastern luxury revenge itself on Roman arms. It may be wondered that Pliny should keep his own temper, and check the indignation of his friends at a scene which was fit only for the dissolute revels of the infamous Trimalchio. But it will not, perhaps, be doing justice to our author to take an estimate of his real sentiments upon this point from the letter before us. Genitor, it seems, was a man of strict, but rather of too austere morals for the free turn of the age: "emendatus et gravis: paulo etiam horridior et durior ut in hac licentia teniporuni" (Ep. III. 1. 3). But as there is a certain seasonable accommodation to the manners of the times, not only extremely Consistent with, but highly conducive to, the interests of virtue, Pliny, probably, may affect a greater latitude than he in general approved, in order to draw off his friend from that stiffness and unyielding disposition which might prejudice those of a gayer turn against him, and consequently lessen the beneficial influence of his virtues upon the world. M.]

152 (return)

[ See letter CIII.]

153 (return)

[ Iliad, XXI. 387. Pope. M.]

154 (return)

[ Iliad, V. 356, speaking of Mars. M.; Iliad, IV. 452. Pope.]

155 (return)

[ The design of Pliny in this letter is to justify the figurative expressions he had employed, probably, in same oration, by instances of the same warmth of colouring from those great masters of eloquence, Demosthenes and his rival Aesehines. But the force of the passages which he produces from those orators must necessarily be greatly weakened to a mere modern reader, some of them being only hinted at, as generally well known; and the metaphors in several of the others have either lost much of their original spirit and boldness, by being introduced and received in Common language, or cannot, perhaps, he preserved in an English translation. M.]

156 (return)

[ See 1st Philippic.]

157 (return)

[ See Demosthenes' speech in defence of Cteisphon.]

158 (return)

[ See end Olynthiac.]

159 (return)

[ See Aesehines' speech against Ctesiphon.]

160 (return)

[ It was a religious ceremony practised by the ancients to pour precious ointments upon the statues of their gods: Avitus, it is probable, imagined this dolphin was some sea-divinity, and therefore expressed his veneration of him by the solemnity of a sacred unction. M.]

161 (return)

[ The overflowing humanity of Pliny's temper breaks out upon all occasions, but he discovers it in nothing more strongly than by the impression which this little story appears to have made upon him. True benevolence, indeed, extends itself through the whole compass of existence, and sympathises with the distress of every creature of sensation. Little minds may be apt to consider a compassion of this inferior kind as an instance of weakness; but it is undoubtedly the evidence of a noble nature. Homer thought it not unbecoming the character even of a hero to melt into tears at a distress of this sort, and has given us a most amiable and affecting picture of Ulysses weeping over his faithful dog Argus, when he expires at his feet:

     "Soft pity touch'd the mighty master's soul;     Adown his cheek the tear unbidden stole,     Stole unperceived; he turn'd his head and dry'd     The drop humane.".     (Odyss. XVII. Pope.) M.]

162 (return)

[ By the regimen which Pliny here follows, one would imagine, if he had not told us who were his physicians, that the celebrated Celsus was in the number. That author expressly recommends reading aloud, and afterwards walking, as beneficial in disorders of the stomach: "Si quis stomacho laborat, leqere clare debet; post lectionem ambulare," &c. Celsi Medic. 1. I. C. 8. M.]

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I – TO THE EMPEROR TRAJAN[1001]

THE pious affection you bore, most sacred Emperor, to your august father induced you to wish it might be late ere you succeeded him. But the immortal gods thought proper to hasten the advancement of those virtues to the helm of the commonwealth which had already shared in the steerage.[1002] May you then, and the world through your means, enjoy every prosperity worthy of your reign: to which let me add my wishes, most excellent Emperor, upon a private as well as public account, that your health and spirits may be preserved firm and unbroken.

II – To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

You have occasioned me, Sir, an inexpressible pleasure in deeming me worthy of enjoying the privilege which the laws confer on those who have three children. For although it was from an indulgence to the request of the excellent Julius Servianus, your own most devoted servant, that you granted this favour, yet I have the satisfaction to find by the words of your rescript that you complied the more willingly as his application was in my behalf. I cannot but look upon myself as in possession of my utmost wish, after having thus received, at the beginning of your most auspicious reign, so distinguishing a mark of your peculiar favour; at the same time that it considerably heightens my desire of leaving a family behind me. I was not entirely without this desire even in the late most unhappy times: as my two marriages will induce you to believe. But the gods decreed it better, by reserving every valuable privilege to the bounty of your generous dispensations. And indeed the pleasure of being a father will be so much more acceptable to me now, that I can enjoy it in full security and happiness.

III – To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE experience, most excellent Emperor, I have had of your unbounded generosity to me, in my own person, encourages me to hope I may be yet farther obliged to it, in that of my friends. Voconius Romanus (who was my schoolfellow and companion from our earliest years) claims the first rank in that number; in consequence of which I petitioned your sacred father to promote him to the dignity of the senatorial order. But the completion of my request is reserved to your goodness; for his mother had not then advanced, in the manner the law directs, the liberal gift[1003] of four hundred thousand sesterces, which she engaged to give him, in her letter to the late emperor, your father. This, however, by my advice she has since done, having made over certain estates to him, as well as completed every other act necessary to make the conveyance valid. The difficulties therefore being removed which deferred the gratification of our wishes, it is with full confidence I venture to assure you of the worth of my friend Romanus, heightened and adorned as it is not only by liberal culture, but by his extraordinary tenderness to his parents as well. It is to that virtue he owes the present liberality of his mother; as well as his immediate succession to his late father's estate, and his adoption by his father-in-law. To these personal qualifications, the wealth and rank of his family give additional lustre; and I persuade myself it will be some further recommendation that I solicit in his behalf. Let me, then, entreat you, Sir, to enable me to congratulate Romanus on so desirable an occasion, and at the same time to indulge an eager and, I hope, laudable ambition, of having it in my power to boast that your favourable regards are extended not only to myself, but also to my friend.